It's 2013 somewhere!(hlntv.com)Happy New Year!
Maybe you aren't satisfied with just one New Year's kiss, maybe you love counting backwards from 10 or maybe you just love a reason to celebrate... we're here to help. Why just celebrate once when you can keep ringing in the New Year until the clock strikes midnight in Honolulu at 5 AM ET tomorrow? Here are the 'hit times' for 2013 in some of the landmark cities all over this big blue marble.more...12/31/2012

Earthcam's New Year's Live 2013(www.sfgate.com)In a nutshell: Watch live streaming video of New Year's Eve celebrations in New York and around the world.
Cool factor: This iPhone, iPad and iPod touch app brings New Year's celebrations from around the world. The best coverage is of the Big Apple's famed countdown, with a choice of nine exclusive webcam views from around Times Square. But you can also tap into streams from cities like Paris, Moscow, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo and Sydney. The app also has noisemaker sound effects and you can take a photo of yourself wearing a New Year's party hat to share with your Facebook friends.more...12/31/2012

EarthCam Makes Donation for Hurricane Sandy Relief(timesunion.com)EarthCam, the global leader in construction camera technology, has donated a portion of its November sales revenue to Liberty Island and Ellis Island in New York for Hurricane Sandy relief.
As the East Coast recovers from Hurricane Sandy, two of New York City's most iconic landmarks and heavily visited destinations are closed until further notice. Liberty Island, home to the world-famous Statue of Liberty, and Ellis Island – the gateway for millions of immigrants – sustained damage due to flood waters and high winds. Both historic locations remain without power and basic infrastructure.more...12/27/2012

Doomsday 2012: Watch the 'End of the World' Live Online(space.com)Anyone worried that the world will come to an end Friday (Dec. 21) can scan the heavens online this week for any signs of death from above.
The online Slooh Space Camera will broadcast a series of live cosmic views all week, beginning today (Dec. 17). The free webcasts will help the public keep watch for any monster solar storms, impending asteroid strikes or other potential agents of the so-called "Mayan apocalypse" that doomsayers claim is set for Friday.more...12/18/2012

Where ER Doctors Work Entirely Via Webcam(theatlantic.com)Every day -- and through the night -- in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, doctors report to work in a hospital where there are no patients.
And in over 70 rural communities in four states, patients stricken by heart attacks, or injured in car accidents, or facing other urgent health issues are rushed to an E.R. where there are no doctors. Or, more precisely, there's one doctor. More often than not, he or she is trained in family practice, not emergency care. And if the call's coming in the middle of the night, he legally has a half-hour to get out of bed and report in.more...12/13/2012

Webcams give parents a new view of intensive care babies(utsandiego.com)At 46 days old, Andrew Velasco has no idea what a star he has become, especially for his grandmother in Mexico.
“When I told my mom that she could see him on the Internet, she was so happy she was crying,” said Sara Orejel, Andrew’s mother.
Though the child is small, only 2 pounds 5 ounces at birth, he is having a big impact at Tri-City Medical Center. He’s one of the first babies in the neonatal intensive care unit to live under the gaze of a new webcam system that allows family and friends to check him out around the clock.more...12/13/2012

Watch New York’s Tallest Building, 432 Park Avenue, Rise in Real-Time on a Secret Sky Cam Site(observer.com)The condo tower rising at 432 Park Avenue may be the most fascinating development project in the city. Sure, it can boast of being the tallest building rising in the city at the moment, to an eventual height of 1,397 feet (29 feet higher than the roof of 1 World Trade Center). It is also set to be the most expensive. But even more so, it is the secrecy of the building’s developers, CIM Group and Harry Macklowe, that make the project all the more intriguing.
Very few details about the project have been released, and none of them publicly. Even renderings are clandestine. Which is why it is amazing that not one or even two but three different skycams have been whirring away at the site for the past year, showing it off in real-time, free for anyone to look—except that no one thought to.more...12/7/2012

Webcams offer a low-cost way to tune lasers for serious science(phys.org)Every photon in a laser beam marches in lockstep, at an identical wavelength that depends on what the laser is used for – for example, infrared lasers that drive the optic fiber internet. For many applications, lasers need to be precisely tuned to those wavelengths, and the wavelength-measuring instruments can be more expensive than the lasers themselves. Now, using a handful of inexpensive components – including an off-the-shelf computer webcam and a small diffraction grating, a device for splitting and diffracting light into several beams – researchers have built a diffraction spectrometer that can tune lasers with better than one part-per-million accuracy.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-12-webcams-low-cost-tune-lasers-science.html#jCpmore...12/5/2012

Prisoners will soon be able to webcam with friends and family(nbc40.net)
New technology in one local jail will soon allow prisoners to see family and friends more often and it will also make the jail safer.
For anyone who has ever seen a prison movie, you can probably picture the visiting booth in your head, but now prison officials at the Cumberland County jail are switching things up and allowing inmates to video conference.
"If an inmate stays in touch with their family they are more likely to be successful when they leave here," warden Robert Balicki said.more...12/5/2012

Webcams help wildfire spotters(kmtr.com)Two webcams mounted on the top of a 90-food communication tower are helping firefighters scan for wildfires in central Oregon.
The Bulletin reports that crews with Lake Chinook Fire & Rescue will be able to access the camera images from a smartphone or laptop computer.more...12/3/2012